When Rush is inducted into the Juno Hall of Fame tonight, it won't be the first time the trio of Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart has been honored by the Juno Awards, which air at 8 p.m. on CBC.
In fact, the year Peart joined the band, 1974, Rush was named most promising group of the year. In the 20 years since, not only has Rush proven that being named the Junos' most promising group isn't always the kiss of death, it has received four other Junos, recorded 19 albums, sold more than 30 million albums, performed more than 500 shows to six million fans in a dozen countries and become the most durable and successful group in Canadian history. But Rush in the Hall of Fame?
For all the firepower it unloads in its concert tours, Rush has always tended to keep its accomplishments quietly to itself. It has always affiliated itself with its fans, not the music business. It has always aligned its musical ideals with those of its early idols and also the new acts that continue to embrace that idealism and shake new life into rock 'n' roll.
Rush in the Hall of Fame? A highly unlikely forecast to anyone who remembers the band's first single, Not Fade Away, released almost 25 years ago, or the trio's first, pre-Peart album, which was a crude approximation of Led Zeppelin and Humble Pie sludge. Or if they could have read Neil Peart's mind on the night in 1974 he turned 22 years old, drumming in the opening act for Sha Na Na.
"Touring was the answer for us," he says during a phone call from New York, a stop on Rush's 987th tour. "We'd never think of saying no to any offer that came along and would end up bouncing all over the country. One reason we continue to tour, despite it becoming more difficult, and, frankly, less enjoyable, is that it's still the right thing to do - to stay vital and put yourself to the ultimate test each night".
Winning awards, any award, was the furthest thing from Rush's thinking. It still is. Neil's call wasn't prompted by the Juno honor but his concern that fans might feel snubbed by the band's inability to fit Vancouver into its tour to promote the LP, Counterparts. Such conscientiousness has been its own reward, and possibly is at the heart of the group's induction into the Hall of Fame, where its name will join that of Leonard Cohen, Gordon Lightfoot, Oscar Peterson, Joni Mitchell, Glenn Gould, Neil Young and others.
Even now the band is searching to improve as musicians and honor its past in more personally meaningful ways. Neil, who constantly is polishing and subtly refining his phrasing as a drummer, also has, after 25 years, taken up brushes. Meanwhile, the band is recording the current tour for release as a 20th anniversary retrospective. Both examples are clues as to what drives Rush after all these years and how it has managed to survive - intact, scandal-free and healthy.
When Rush started, it was just another heavy-metal band from Toronto and a particularly unappealing one at that, what with its second-hand guitar riffs and Geddy Lee's squealing voice. However, the trio had a manager, Ray Daniels, that believed in it and, by the time Peart took over the drumming duties for the second album, it had galvanized itself into action by the desire to emulate its heros, which at the time ranged from the jagged, dark power of King Crimson to the orchestral splendor of Barclay James Harvest.
One of the myths that has endured about Rush's success is that Daniels and the band did it all by themselves. If radio wouldn't play a Rush record, if the music press hated the band, Rush would tour with anyone who wanted it, would play for who counted most, the people. This happened. Rush became the archetypal people's band of the 1970s, but Peart refused to gild the myth. "There was always word of mouth going around for the band, and we always got college airplay, which helped us to build an audience," he points out. Still, "as much as the industry pretends they can control any band's career, the fact is that it starts in the garage and ends in the garage, and that's what I love about rock 'n' roll. That's where the ideas come from and the attitude. That's what happened with Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Duke Ellington's famous quote is that there are only two kinds of music - good and bad, " Neil notes, touching on the theme of dualities that inspired the songs on Counterparts. "I'd extend that to say there is honest music and dishonest music. When I hear a band that is honest - no matter what it is - I'll always cut them some slack. We had The Melvins open for us. I loved everything about them but their music."
In the interests of mastering their instruments and the recording studio, Rush relied upon a work ethic that would have ruined any other band while its lofty artistic ambitions produced several unwieldy and not very listenable albums until the time came, around 1980 and the release of the Permanent Waves LP, that Rush had fashioned its own identity, its own sound and its own ethos.
As Rush progressed, it incorporated contemporary ideas into records that were becoming more direct, melodic and warmer. As lyricist, Neil was broadening the band's musical personality through his own expanding interests in journalism, fiction, cycling and travel. It developed one of the most efficient and admired production crews on the road and avidly sought out new, emerging bands as opening act, treating them with respect. But by the late '80s, Rush found itself more alone than ever.
"That was a time of bad writing and playing and drum programs and industry-directed music," Peart recalls. "One of the reasons I'm excited by a lot of the bands I'm hearing in the '90s is that they have good lyrics and they're good players. The band Live impresses me, and the drummer for Pearl Jam is so fluid and rhythmic."
Thus invigorated, Rush summoned 20 years' experience and combined it with an urge to get back to the stripped-down sound of the new bands it was hearing - which it also had inspired. The feat of Counterparts is that it is the trio's most mature production while simultaneously making Rush sound young and ready for another 20 years. Peart is quicker to acknowledge that the idealism that fires these bands still drives Rush in 1994. Perhaps this is why, more than the awards that have started to take up space at Anthem Records (Rush's label, set up in the late '70s by Daniels), Neil is proudest of the numerous new bands, notably Primus, that cite Rush as an influence, not only for its musicianship but its integrity.
For Lee, Lifeson and Peart there could be no greater affirmation. "Affirmation is the word," Neil agrees. "In the dark days of the '80s we felt alone - the last band out there holding to what we believed to breathe the honesty and power of rock 'n' roll and the rebellion. Now, in the '90s, to hear these bands come along who believe as we do is totally affirming. And, in case anyone gets the wrong idea, the awards are nice, too. It feels very good," Peart says, tickled that last year Rush became the first recipient of the Harvard National Lampoon's Group of the Millennium award.
"Without being too flip about it, being inducted into the Hall of Fame is a case of us reaching a state of maturity and confidence in ourselves that we can accept the recognition. The award that was really satisfying, personally, was the Toronto Arts Award, not only because the council broke tradition by giving us the award but because the award has the word 'art' in it. When I do get awards - from Modern Drummer magazine, from my peers - I understand that, because that's what I do. It comes back to one of my old themes," Peart continues. "It's the division between dreams and fantasies. To me, dreams are attainable while fantasies are unrealistic. So any goal Rush set for itself was based on an attainable dream."
When Rush opened for Sha Na Na in 1974, becoming a respected, influential drummer was Neil Peart's distant dream. Entering the Juno Hall of Fame wasn't even a remote fantasy. The irony is that the practicality, integrity (and a seldomly acknowledged gentle humor) with which Rush has guided itself has converged with the timely recognition of both the industry and the musicians the group has influenced. Rush in the Hall of Fame? More fantastic things have happened.